


eden and metropolis

by AdiAbieu



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-01-22 12:36:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21302171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdiAbieu/pseuds/AdiAbieu
Summary: She found Alex perched on an outcrop of stone, inspecting a rock in the palm of her hand. Maggie suspected it was the flint from their survival kit. Alex fingered at its sharp, uneven edges, their eyes meeting as the rock bit against flesh.
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer
Comments: 31
Kudos: 176





	1. eden: the primal

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone :) thanks for reading, hope you enjoy.

“...And that’s why we walk on two legs, and not four, so scientists think…”

“Neat.”

Alex glanced over her shoulder as they cut up through the undergrowth. “Are you listening to me?”

“Africa, forests shrinking, grassland developing, pre-humans panicking,” Maggie surmised, “Now we walk, not prowl.”

“You’re almost as bad as Kara.”

“I’m staring at your ass, forgive me for being distracted.”

Alex chuckled, pushing up over a ridge. Around them, the forest thrummed with life, insects buzzing around her ears, the grass lush under her hiking boots, birds tweeting and swooping at the branches overhead.

Her calves burned from the climb, but it was precisely what she needed after the week she had just slogged through. A case that she and two colleagues from another precinct spent 18 months meticulously putting together - making sure everything was by the books, regulations were adhered to and evidence was watertight - fell through before they got to court. The suspect hung himself in his cell.

It was frustrating, to get no justice for the victims whom she and those two colleagues had fought to build a case for. 

She followed Alex, weaving and sewing their path into the forest higher and higher, until they reached a clearing. She screwed off her bottle top and gulped a hearty mouthful of water. Then she braced her hand on her hip to admire the view.

Before them was the lush green, pines swaying as if to a rhythm only the forest pulsed with. The trees sloped down until they reached a glorious lake, glittering in the bright afternoon. It was a world away from the flaked concrete of the parking lot where their bikes were parked, further still from their daily lives. As far as Maggie could see, the only other human life for miles around was Alex. 

While she had enjoyed hiking with previous girlfriends, something about getting in touch with nature alongside Alex was different. She walked like a hunter, upright, alert, predatory. With her, Maggie was afraid of nothing.

“Gorgeous.”

“Right?” Alex replied, “I forget about this, working in the city so long.”

“It’s good to get out. Cleanse your palate.”

Alex clucked her tongue. “I still refuse to do outdoor yoga with you.”

“Well, the mats are in the car. There’s enough time to turn back and get them.”

Laughing, Alex wiped at the sweat on her brow. She exuded experience,  knowledge, wisdom . Maggie watched her, wry and careful. Soaking it all in. 

*

The artificial, amongst the natural. Synthetics and fibers and plastics. Navy and white fabric arched up and over precarious poles.

They had gone through a trial run the night before, with instructions and giggles and fumbling. She had nipped her finger in the connections between the rods. But there was none of that frivolous atmosphere now, this was business. There were no directions to consult, no diagrams or images. No labelled items to refer to.

Just poles, fabric, two women trying to build their home for the night.

On their hike up, they’d passed an old fisherman’s hut, wooden panels now rotted with age, damp and insects. Yet it still stood amongst the trees that had likely birthed it. Years of human shelter had evolved techniques, architecture and structure, and yet the theory was the same. To build a strong foundation, near running water, and to protect its inhabitants from the elements.

Maggie listened to the trickling stream to her right as Alex pulled the wrinkled flysheet from her knapsack and flapped it into the air. Next, she unzipped the meshy section which would hopefully keep their shelter insect free.

“Okay, just like last night,” Maggie said, the rods clinking in her hands as she transferred them to the top of the flysheet.

“It’s not rocket science,” Alex quipped, hunching down to pick up a rod and begin clicking it from its folded down position to a sturdy rib for the tent. “It’s not even Ikea furniture.”

“Not sure which one I’d rather try.”

The clink of the metal tent poles had irritated her on their climb up, prodding at her tailbone. She was glad they were finally assembling the place they would sleep tonight.

Maggie observed the smooth glide of Alex pushing the steely rods through the fabric, raising their home from the dirt. It was practically toe-curling, the muscles of her forearm flexing as she fed the tent, giving it shape.

She thought about the lessons she had taken as a kid, learning catechism. Adam and God, molding life from a rib and some clay. Breathing womanhood onto the Earth. 

“You okay there?”

Maggie blinked, seeing that Alex was now kneeling on the grass, looking up at her in question.

“Pegs,” Maggie rasped, trying not to let her body react to the innuendo they both side-stepped.

With a smirk, Alex dangled the black bag in the air. After a beat, Maggie took it and got to work on the loops, ignoring the muscled thighs teased by Alex’s shorts.

*

After a short respite with snacks, they set off into the surrounding thicket. Their conversation wandered, almost magnetic, sticking with one topic then jumping to the next. Eventually they got lost in the forest of their thoughts. 

Hypnotic, she followed Alex’s footsteps, or Alex followed hers, the breeze and peace making them more and more fluid, as if they too were becoming a river through the trees. They swung around the trunks as if they were teenagers, exchanging coy looks.

They discovered a design on the bark of a gnarled redwood, made in the spirit of young love. Someone had carved the letters  _ A _ and  _ M _ into the bark, taking chunks out of the tree. Surrounding them was a lop-sided heart-shape. 

Alex’s lips twitched as she circled the lettering with her fingertip, passing over the moss which came close to encroaching on the message. It was likely a young couple that had wanted to brand something with the symbols of their romance. It was mere coincidence, but to Maggie it felt like magic.

Then Alex was away again.

After another few minutes, Maggie peered over a patch of brambles, trying to spot her disappearing girlfriend. Then Alex seized her wrist and turned her against the tree, bark biting at her spine. With the hunger Alex looked at her, she thought her girlfriend was going to hike her leg up around her hips, slide her hands into her pants and fuck her right there, but she didn’t.

Later, Maggie gave chase, boots cracking on the undergrowth, breathing with the wind. They began to talk less and less, communicating with throaty noises, with grunts, completely understanding each other with touch, with instinct, with want.

As the afternoon sun sunk lower, filtering through high branches, she lost her lover’s trail for just a few minutes. She found Alex perched on an outcrop of stone, inspecting a rock in the palm of her hand. Maggie suspected it was the flint from their survival kit.

Alex fingered at its sharp, uneven edges, their eyes meeting as the rock bit against flesh.

*

They went deeper still into the belly of the forest, trekking down a slope or two until the tree line thinned and they found themselves at a lake. Maggie craned her neck back to look into the heights, trying to figure out if this was the body of water she had seen earlier from the ridge.

The sun was lower, warmer even, and the lake glittered. She shielded her eyes and looked up as a hawk swung in lazy arches overhead. Even from a distance, she could see the white of its belly, the power of its wingspan.

With no humans around, it ruled the skies and picked prey at will. Maggie turned in a slow circle, no signs of civilization present except for the two of them. 

And Alex…

Her breath caught as she saw the sight of her girlfriend without her shirt on, already working on the latch of her bra. Then she undid the zip of her shorts, sliding them down over her legs. Then her socks and shoes came off. And her underwear.

Alex stepped away from the pool of clothing, peering through her eyelashes, and then padded down towards the rim of the lake. The rigid line of her shoulders and fleshy tendons of her muscles all moved with precision, each motion calculated.

Maggie had seen that nude form many times; by the lamplight as they learned each other’s bodies, behind foggy shower glass as she brushed her teeth, or when Alex had come home from a nightshift, stripped and crawled into the covers. But nothing quite like this. Not with the trees whispering around them, with the rush of a dozen streams into the lake, with predators swinging over head in search of their next meal.

As if prompted by hypnosis, Maggie reached for the hem of her shirt and lifted it over her head. She reached for her shorts as Alex glided backwards into the blue. The waterline rose to her knees, her hips, her waist. With the same fluidity and the same unabashed attitude to her naked form, Maggie removed her underwear and bra and followed towards the water.

Above them, the hawk cawed, diving down towards the tree line, sending a fluttering of smaller birds up to blacken the blue sky with their escape. Maggie stopped at the waterline, letting it lick between her toes. Alex tipped her chin in approval, then bend her knees and sank down below the surface.

Alone for a heartbeat, Maggie hesitated, then she continued on. She walked against the weight of the water sloshing against her shins, knees, then treaded further, deeper. She scanned the rippling surface for a dark shape underneath.

Then arms encircled her, water splashing behind, and lips were at her pulse. Weightless, she lifted her feet and sank back into her girlfriend's embrace. They moved as incorporeal beings in the water, twirling and dancing, Maggie combing through the red hair slicked back against Alex's scalp. They kissed, and moved away, then together and kissed again, as if they were obeying the tide.

Eventually, Alex peddled away and stroked into a swim, moving deeper again. Maggie didn't hesitate to follow. 

*

In the wild, danger lurked around every corner. But in the alluring call of nature, Maggie had lost track of that fact. 

They weren’t far from the lake when Alex clamped onto her wrist and halted her mid-step. Her eyes were wide and focused ahead of them. Maggie looked up through the brambles and saw a dark mass lumbering towards the river: a bear. 

Fear stabbed at her heart like an icicle, melting chilled liquid into her veins. There was nowhere to run from the bear, because while it was about twenty yards away, it would catch them in no time if it pleased. 

Alex breathed short and sharp behind her, then her trained instincts kicked in. From a side zipper in her knapsack, she drew out a handle. Silently, she whipped it out to reveal a longblade, gleaming in the evening sun. 

Just barely over the thundering of her heart in her ribcage, Maggie heard the bear’s tongue lapping at the river as it quenched its thirst. While she had watched Alex wrestle with monsters and aliens, on those occasions she had been armed with technology and weapons. This was one woman and a blade. This was a true test of her abilities against claws and teeth that might rip her to shreds. 

Alex’s hair clung to the back of her skull, still damp. Maggie held her breath, watching a single droplet slide down the plane of her neck.

The only thing that saved them was sheer luck. The bear sniffed at the air and then waded into the water. Alex unclamped her wrist, and even as her joint throbbed, Maggie watched the flex of her girlfriend’s bicep lowering the blade. 

And felt something more than relief. 

*

Darkness fell. They huddled together by a campfire.

They unboxed their leftovers from the night before. They had prepared and cooked the meal together, sharing wine and conversation in a kitchen rich with warmth and spice. As much as they had planned for this camping trip, they had forgotten utensils. No knives, no forks, no spoons; just their hands.

With messy fingers, messier mouths, they devoured their meat, vegetables, rice. And this was better, Maggie thought, watching Alex eating at chicken with such fervour that she may have trapped, skinned and cooked the animal over this very smokey fire. 

Hunger sated, expressions flickering with the firelight, Maggie thought about the hypnotic nature of the flames. Humans had performed rituals around fires for centuries, millenia even. Prompted by the haze filtering up into the black night, Maggie remembered when Alex told her about her emergency field training for the DEO under J’onn’s guidance. She had confessed it was the toughest thing she had ever done to that point, but was determined to push herself. She also admitted she thought she had left a little piece of her soul in those woods. 

Maggie wondered if this could be a ritual of getting that girl back, stripped away from city life, an animal in the wild that hunts, eats, lives in the wood. Lives by the rhythm of nature alone. 

But then she caught the darkening glare, the curl of Alex’s fists on her lap, and wondered if her girlfriend was present at all, or if all that was left was the wild, now. 

*

In the tent, she got her answer. 

No sooner had she crawled into their fabric shelter than she was pressed down flat onto her belly with pressure her tailbone. She relented, saying nothing as Alex slid a knee right up to press between her legs and lean down over her. She felt Alex straddle the back of her thigh and bend down, teething at the tendons of her neck. 

Her blood grew heated in response, sighing as teeth nipped as her shoulder, warning her to stay on her belly. Then Alex rose and stripped her as if she was impatient that they were still dressed, not gentle when she yanked off Maggie's shirt, not caring about pulled stitches. 

The sex itself was just as rough, fingertips digging into the flesh of her thighs. Teeth set against her spine and the swirl of primal, damp heat in the tent made her want it even worse. It was carnal, to be claimed like this. To have fingers fucking into her, Alex groaning against the back of her shoulder. Her girlfriend prided herself on being a gentle, attentive lover. 

But this was unadulterated thrill, to have Alex pin her in her place and have her as she wanted. She panted her orgasm into cushy material of the sleeping bag, savouring the feeling of her lover inside her. 

And in the night, unsated, she was taken again. Alex curled behind her, her own knees keeping Maggie’s legs spread, one arm tight around her chest, as if their ribs could fit together, their bodies knitting into one.

And pleasure, without restraint.

*

On the way home they stopped at a diner designed to be the height of Americana: burnt coffee, tiled floors, a jukebox silenced and blinking at eight in the morning.

Their fellow patrons were two truck drivers sitting apart, slurping coffee and flicking through their phones, and a young woman who looked as if she was returning from a nightshift somewhere, makeup smudged.

They shared a booth; ruby leather squeaking every time they moved. Their phones danced on the table, vibrating as they reconnected to Wi-Fi and loaded them with all the notifications they had missed. But the pair didn’t pay them any heed.

Alex simply toyed with Maggie’s fingers around the handle of her mug, whiskey-soaked eyes speaking more than words could express. 

“Back to civilisation, huh?”

“I don’t know,” Alex replied, lacing their hands together and letting them still on the tabletop. “I kinda liked it when you were a little wild with me.”

“Oh yeah? Going back to nature does it for you?”

“It did for you too, apparently.”

Instead of justifying her blush with a response, Maggie gazed out through the speckled diner window at the concrete parking lot, toppled trash can, trucks bumbling by on the highway. 

She had to admit, she agreed.


	2. metropolis: the civilised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is longer than the first, though the two are meant to parallel each other with each section. I hope you enjoy :)

Even through the leather of her boots, the heated tarmac licked up at her soles. She shielded her eyes from the sun as they shuffled along the neat white lines herding passengers from the terminal to the aircraft. 

They had met like this. With charred carpet, busted limousine and aircraft fuel singeing into their nostrils. The sun was as low as it was now, but the tension had been high. She never would have imagined that the run-in with a city detective would be so consequential. 

“You sure you’re okay?”

Alex glanced up at Maggie, who had halted mid-step at the foot of the aircraft steps, waiting to board, waiting to be answered. “Yeah, I get nervous with planes.”

Nervous. Yes, that’s what the residual terror was each time she recalled closing her eyes and waiting to die, surrounded by screaming passengers. When technology failed, physics failed, her courage failed. 

She nodded politely to the stewardesses and then inched behind Maggie as they went to their seats. Amongst the unpleasant odour that came from too many anxious, impatient people crammed into a confined space together she picked up the watermelon scent of Maggie’s shampoo and relaxed. 

She had racked up plenty of air miles on the private DEO jets and choppers, even with Kara, yet this was her first time going anywhere international with Maggie. They had exchanged destination ideas, bartered over chasing sights or sun, beaches or cities, the water or the mountains. Eventually they settled on somewhere Alex had never really imagined going. 

“Mommy, how long will it take for us to get to Paris?” a child in front of her asked, bouncing on his toes and pawing at his mother’s elbow. 

“A long time,” she replied, huffing at the lack of movement in front of her, “So you’re just gonna watch Toy Story and sleep.”

Maggie glanced back at Alex again, partly-bemused and partly reassuring her that they hadn’t gotten separated quite yet. Alex tipped her nose forward at the excited child. 

“I can understand the excitement,” she said. 

Further up they went, stopping just shy of their row as a man hoisted his sports bag up into the overhead locker. Alex wrinkled her nose at the rancid smell the movement wafted around. 

Her girlfriend was organised for the flight, prepared for every eventuality. She had even bought a Supergirl travel pillow for Alex’s neck on the journey. The large House of El insignias bracketed her ears as they took their seats, ducking below the overhead compartments and slipping into the tight space. 

“I look ridiculous,” Alex complained, hitting the pillow back against the seat. The child from before smiled at the crests before being pushed along by their mother. 

Maggie produced a green packet of gum, rustling it at her. “For when your ears pop.”

Alex took the packet and pricked at the end with her thumbnail, realising this wasn’t like any other flight she had been on. She didn’t have the steely weight of a job to do on her shoulders, nor did she have a stirring in her gut that a mission brought. She was with the woman she loved, on a holiday-bound flight, to a city she had only ever seen on TV or in magazines. 

She glanced past Maggie to where the airport groundsmen were fuelling the plane in their fluorescent orange vests. Every time she flew, she thought about the feat of engineering it took to defy gravity, to hoist all that weight into the air. She never understood it when she watched take-offs from the terminal, the metal birds gliding up off the runway as if they were being lifted and carried by God.

But if that were the case, sometimes he dropped them. 

Her knees bounced, remembering when that technology failed. When, if she hadn’t had a spritely sister who was prepared to defy all promises and use her powers of flight and strength, she would have-

“Switch.”

Alex blinked, knees freezing. “Why?”

“Because I know what you’re thinking about,” Maggie said, fixing those knowing eyes on her and hunching up out of the seat, “I know you’d rather see.”

Alex swallowed. She had been in the window seat that time, too, and couldn’t really cope with aisles on any flight she had been on since. 

Still, even as she careened back and shimmied in behind Maggie to the seat, she cracked a weak joke, “What if I need to get out and pee?”

Maggie landed in Alex’s previous seat, readjusting her own travel pillow, “I think we’ll let you out, and not leave you to pee in a bottle or something.”

Alex grinned, squeezing the last of the tension into her travel pillow. 

She was no stranger to the stamped pages of Maggie’s passport. She’d hiked, backpacked, dived and searched across a dozen countries. She had never travelled with expense, extravagance, luxury. She sought the underbelly of as many places as she could each time she scraped the money together. This vacation was special in that sense. They’d saved in order to garnish their trip to Paris with as many luxuries as they could afford. 

If there was any city on the planet they would do it for, Maggie said, it was Paris. 

“This is actually a new model,” Maggie said, stroking along the armrests, touching the back of the seat in front of her where the leather was uncreased. “The airline invested in about fifty of these last year.”

“How do you know that?”

“I pay attention.” Maggie grinned. “I like travel.”

And when Alex gripped Maggie’s hand during take off, she thought maybe she could grow to like it, too. 

~

The DEO never set her up in shabby hotels when they sent her for conferences or a rendezvous abroad, but this was on another level.

She gawked at the chandelier dangling from the ceiling of the reception. The natural morning sun refracting into a million twinkles. Even lowering her gaze, she gaped at the sophisticated dress of people passing, the plush leather chairs of the waiting area, the style of the cafe just to the side of the foyer. Huge marbled steps led up from the floor to beyond, polished mirrors charting the steps of passersby.

The receptionist clicked rapidly at his keyboard, and with a treble beep, looked up at them with a white-toothed grin. 

“Miss Sawyer,” he said, standing up, “Come with me, please.”

He walked around the desk, ducked for their bags, and trotted off in the direction of the elevators. 

“Miss Danvers,” Maggie purred, hooking her elbow around Alex’s own and tugging her along. “Please, right this way.”

The elevator ride was so smooth that she couldn’t feel the lift in her stomach. The crimson carpet let them whisper along its wide hallways, all the way to their suite, which knocked Alex back a step on its own. 

Maggie had been a shark on the internet, trawling and trawling through listings, deals, packages and prizes until she found one that Alex couldn’t refuse. Still, while she had been impressed with the balance of quality for price, she still wasn’t expecting just how  _ nice _ this was going to be. 

The hotel worker from before spoke with Maggie as he wheeled in their bags, offering services at all hours. But Alex was swept up in the materials, the bathroom, the view, the bed. She ran over fingers over a polished mahogany writing desk, over sparkling crystal, through the tassels of the curtains. 

Over the balcony railing were the rooftops of Paris, sandy coloured buildings, twisted spires, and landmarks that had seen more history than any living human could hope for. 

Behind her, a voice cleared. She turned to see Maggie leaning against a tall post, arms crossed, bemused.

Oh, the bed. They were going to have sex in that bed, with its four posters, its carved headboard, its tasteful drapes and decoration. 

Maggie thumbed to the pillows. “Wanna get the vacation started early?”

Dizzy on her feet with jetlag and the time difference, Alex grinned. 

~

Ain Ghazal. 9000 years old. 

Penciled black eyes glared down at her, eerie, unseeing. She would describe them as alien, if she didn’t know what alien eyes were like. She knew that it was putty holding together fragments of plastic, but the longer she stared at the illuminated statue, the more two polarising emotional reactions were being triggered. 

One one hand, she was in awe at the origins of this piece. That an artist, or creator of any kind, could have sculpted something that one day millions would pass by. The fact that this piece was much older than much of the art in the Louvre, predating artistic movements and aesthetic schools of thought and the like, and have more life in it than any painting of feature since. 

On the other hand, those penciled eyes seemed to know her too well. As if judging her, as if looking through her and at her all at once. As if at any given moment, the statue would speak, low and deep, and judge her for her life’s sins. 

With a shudder, Alex turned away and went to find her girlfriend, tail between her legs. 

Through her training as a DEO agent, Alex had learned to be an observer, an analyzer. She knew how to watch, to scan, to deliberate whether someone was a threat or a civilian, to seek out the weaknesses in strategy and design. 

So ingrained was her training, that for the first time she was really seeing. 

The paintings, sculptures and sketches that she saw before her were one of a kind. Modelled by those with artistic visions that she, a scientist, could never possess.

However, that uniqueness, that originality, that vision evaporated when they entered the gift shop. Was only a fleeting thought with each souvenir shop they passed. 

Souvenirs were mass-produced, manufactured without the care and skill that the art had been. She lifted a keyring with a printed Mona Lisa and scowled. Sure, the original hadn’t rocked her world as she’d expected it would, but it meant more than this piece of plastic worth two euros. 

Souvenir shopping for Supergirl was impossible. She wondered if it was silly to bring Kara back something novelty like this: she could fly here every day if she wanted. 

Dozens of Eiffel Towers swung as she poked the display and it squeaked its way in a lazy rotation. They were tricolour, rainbow, gold, silver and bronze. Alex pried a keyring off a hook and brought it closer. It was three pastel macarons stacked together, pink, green and yellow. 

“No, too cheap. The paint will flake off in no time.” 

Alex looked over the macarons at her girlfriend who was inspecting a shelf of crockery. “Oh really?”

“Really.”

Replacing the macarons on the display, she wandered over beside Maggie and looked at the array of shot glasses with the French tricolor on them. She glanced around and asked, “You find anything more suitable for a Kryptonian?” 

With a low noise in her throat, Maggie picked up two objects from the shelf, carefully clacking them together. They were salt and pepper shakers, both red, white and blue. 

“What do you think?”

Alex took one and rolled it over in her fingertips. They were squat Eiffel Towers with rounded tips and holes for the condiments. Kara loved Earth food, more specifically, she loved scoffing it as fast and furiously into her mouth as she could. However, her tastebuds being alien, there were simple things she despised as much as she loved on Earth. 

“I don’t know,” Alex replied, “She hates pepper.”

“No, but she loves  _ Axoran _ .”

_ Axoran _ was a spice from the planet of R’ublyba, whose citizens formed a sizeable community in National City. Some of them had managed to smuggle the spice to Earth with them, two of which being friends of Maggie’s. 

“So does J’onn.” It dawned on Alex then, remembering a Monoprix they had gone too where her eyes had bugged at the spice selection. “They sell it openly here.”

Maggie nodded and handed Alex the other shaker. “We could bring them the shakers plus bring some  _ Axoran _ back. So long as it isn’t smuggling, of course?”

Alex’s passport was encrypted by the DEO, which meant when it was scanned into airport screens, she had special security clearance for importing and exporting. In the old days when the DEO had global jurisdiction and they needed to extradite without alerting the public, she could get away with almost anything. 

She clasped the shakers tight and winked at her girlfriend. 

“Not the first time I’ve brought alien substances onto US soil, Sawyer.”

~

When did bathing go from a necessity to a luxury?

It was the question on Alex’s mind as she leaned her elbows on the balcony, watching a woman in the building opposite. She was reclining on her own balcony, catching the last rays as the sun dipped low. Together, acknowledging each other, they experienced the rumbles of the city. The woman puffed as if the cigarette would last a lifetime, swirls of smoke dancing into the French evening air. 

Alex didn’t find it hard to absorb some of the carefree energy the woman seemed to emit. Two poured glasses of ruby wine sat on the decking table beside her, but she was in no rush to bring them to Maggie. She had just been on the phone with Kara, who’d made an offhand comment about it being such a luxurious holiday, and Alex had to agree. 

Every elegant detail about this city was the farthest thing from basic. It was a city that was both historic and timeless, one which knew luxury, lived and breathed it. Earlier, when she passed by the shopfronts of  Dior, Saint Laurent and Chanel she realised how different it was to the ones she turned her nose up at in National City. The polished glass, without a speck of desert dust like the ones back home, meant much more. 

“Hey, bath’s ready,” Maggie called from inside the hotel room. 

Lifting the two glasses, Alex savoured one last breath of night air, and turned inside. As she thought about the silk robe and lingerie she had packed as a treat for her girlfriend, she revisited the question she had been contemplating after Kara’s call.

When did bathing go from a necessity to a luxury?

She set the glasses on the sink, mirror fogged, air hazy. She turned to find Maggie sitting on the edge, nude already, hand swimming in a figure of eight. The bubbles reached her wrist as the water gently sloshed. 

“You wanna get in first?” she asked, eyeing Alex’s still clothed figure. 

“Guess so,” she replied, reaching for her belt. 

Maggie grinned, wolfish, toweling off her hand. “I’ll grab the wine.”

No longer a necessity, a luxury. Alex slid inch by inch into the warm water which raced as an embrace up legs, waist, back. Soon, a gorgeous woman was between her legs, resting back against her and moving their glasses to the lip of the tub. 

Alex reached for her wine with one hand, gliding her other up Maggie’s body. The water made each motion seductive, the heat and scent of the lavender bubble bath even more so. 

“This is pretty luxurious,” Maggie sighed, resting fully against her girlfriend. 

“This whole city is luxurious.” Alex kissed the bare shoulder in front of her. “You’re luxurious.”

“You just wanna get laid, Danvers.”

Alex hummed, pressing her nose into the damp crop of hair at the nape of Maggie’s neck.

~

The day had been spent sightseeing again. On a breezy afternoon, they swanned narrow streets, perused an artisan stall or two set up by the Seine, circled the Eiffel Tower after deciding not to go up into it. They’d enjoyed a pleasant lunch in a rooftop cafe, where she took her time to savour just how European, how un-American every detail was. The colour of the building, the twist of the balcony, architecture and behaviour much lighter than the hard, hot concrete streets of National City. 

Now they enjoyed a drink, crouched together at a table outside a brasserie. The streets teemed with a varied collection of people: couples, tourists, people with briefcases and suits, people in multi-coloured sports jerseys. 

These caught her attention. She looked in the window of the brasserie to the inside of the bar, where a mass of men were jostling, clad in similar jerseys. When she looked back at Maggie, she was watching them too. 

“Think they’ve been drinking since the soccer game?” Alex asked. 

Maggie ran her teeth over her bottom lip, narrowing her eyes at the men inside as if she was considering Alex’s question very carefully. It was the one and only time she had worn her  _ work _ face while on vacation, and Alex didn’t like the twist of dread she got in her stomach at the sight. 

“Maybe,” Maggie said, settling back against her seat. 

“To drinking in the afternoon,” Alex mused, lifting her beer bottle.

Maggie smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. To Alex, her hackles were raised. 

The guts of ten minutes and a story about Kara’s first week at CatCo later, Alex realised that Maggie’s attention kept flickering to the rowdy men in the bar. Their chanting, shouting and singing carried out through the open front door. It shook the glass, the ground, the tables. Shook the dread collecting in her stomach. 

Alex leaned forward. “Hey babe? You okay-?”

“Let’s pay and go, huh?” Maggie said, already waving at a waiter who popped out of the doorway to clear the table beside them.

She looked into the bar. Three men all had their hands on each others chest. She could see the whites of their eyes. Veins bulged on their necks, visible even in the dim from inside. 

Sure enough, the two of them were barely across the street when they heard a crash. The table they were sitting at was toppled on its side, their empty glasses smashed as two men wrestled and smacked each other on the side of the head, tossling for a good swing. 

Alex’s nostrils flared, strangely relieved at the scene, to be away from it just in time. “You have pretty good instincts for danger.”

Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Maybe I should be a cop.”

~

Alex watched Maggie’s lips as she ordered their food, caught up in the rhythm of her words. As the waitress smiled politely, collected their menus and left, she rested her chin on her palm and asked, “You speak French?”

Maggie made a face. “I remember a little from school. I dated a French exchange student for a while.” 

“Oh.” Alex shifted her napkin, still replaying the sound of her lover’s voice curling around accented French words. “I’m impressed.”

“You speak like seven languages, including French. Shouldn’t be impressive.”

The languages Alex spoke were brusque and bruising. She spoke Krpytonian, she spoke Russian, spoke in situations where she spat insults or was a cool negotiator. She spoke French with representatives from the alien authorities and delegations from the European Union. Business, punchy and direct. 

“Yeah but…” She cooked her words, making sure they were ready before presenting them. “I speak for work. I speak business, diplomacy, tactics. I never speak for...fun.”

Maggie tasted her wine, tasting those words. Itching at the growing sense of self-consciousness, Alex laughed weakly and added, “Besides, hearing you speak such a romantic language is pretty attractive.”

Her girlfriend stirred at the stem of her wine. “Is that why you’ve banned me from speaking Spanish in the bedroom?”

“Yes. I would cease to function.” 

Their order arriving saved her from further reddening cheeks. She looked at the shining silver utensils on either side of her plate, squinting. 

“Work inwards,” Maggie advised. 

She tried foods she had written off as stereotypes, heavy and buttery and creamy. She followed Maggie’s lead on dining etiquette, feeling the need to be polite in these surroundings. Between courses they talked about dining customs around the world, both experienced and rumoured. The loudness of restaurants on other continents, even intergalactic rules about eating with family. 

And as for trying snails? 

Well, if she got to watch Maggie suck one off of her fork again, she thought she might come around to the idea that they were a delicacy after all. 

~

Sexuality hadn’t entered her fascination until she came out. Perhaps she had always pushed it to the back of her mind because subconsciously, she knew she was attracted to women and wasn’t ready to accept that. 

Being with Maggie, she had been taught to walk, then stride, then run. She had learned to experiment, to seek fun and fulfilment. To find pleasure in the basic and the artificial. 

They’d strolled around a Parisian sex shop, confident in the strange faces and the fact they’d never be recognised. Alex marvelled at the manufacturing just as she had in the souvenir shops; the plastics, silicones, all designed and mass-produced in factories to end up in a bedroom, sticky and used. 

There were countless phallic shaped objects, all crazy colours, some items even Maggie raised an eyebrow at, and admitted she wasn’t sure what they were supposed to do with. 

But even presented with such an array of choice, Alex was simple; a vibrator, some silk, and a coy lover between her legs. 

“Paris, city of lovers, and here we are.” Alex tugged at her left wrist as Maggie finished tying it to the headboard. “Romantic.”

Maggie lifted the second piece of silk, padding around the bed to take Alex’s other wrist and thumb at the bone. “You don’t find this romantic?”

In the warm lamplight, every detail made its impact known. The flush on their chests. Each twitch of her forearms. The goosebumps that rose as Maggie dragged her tongue along Alex’s navel. 

Alex craned her neck. “You learn those knots in the academy?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Maggie drifted to the bottom of the bed, swinging idly around a post. “Ankles too?”

Alex’s hands tightened to fists in her ropes.“Depends if you trust me to behave.”

“Hmmm…” Maggie rubbed at the bones of her ankle, the touch reverberating along her whole leg to her core like a plucked harpstring. It trembled, tone tremoring into the air until - “I don’t.”

Her laugh got caught in her chest as arousal rushed through her. Silk snaked around one ankle and then the other. Alex tried to calm the blood pounding around her head, wrists, ankles, between her legs by naming each bone Maggie touched. Her fibula, talus, calcaneus being stroked and bound by silk. 

Maggie liked to take her time, run her lips over Alex’s skin in the barest of touches so that only her breath was a caress. In those gentle puffs of hot, damp breath, the anatomical words disappeared and Alex was only left with the arousal pooling between strained legs. 

Over the months of their blossoming relationship, they’d discussed restraints, the power exchange involved, about whether or not to put any limitations on the possibilities they could explore. She’d confessed that she preferred them without any kind of play, roles. She wanted just them, not getting lost in the performance of sex. 

She just wanted the same Maggie there with her that made breakfast every morning. She saw that now; all four limbs were tied to bedposts, but the woman enjoying her had the same soft brown eyes, same small smile, same voice that would coax her towards ecstasy. 

They hadn’t brought anything in their suitcase and had gone together to that little Parisian sex shop, unashamed because of the fact they would not be recognised. Ducking and weaving through the aisles, Alex had marvelled at the lengths with which humans would go to craft their pleasure, their fetish. She wondered, in a city centuries old, whether previous generations had imagined this level of manufacture, or had their minds not entertained the sin. 

The two of them had chosen a vibrator that had ten different settings, rhythms and pulses. Yet as Maggie crawled between her legs to claim her prize, Alex knew each one would have her stomach clenching. 

Maggie’s hunger knew no bounds, causing a spiral of intensity that built and built. Alex alternated between squeezing her eyes shut and gasping at the sight of her girlfriend, bringing orgasm closer with silicone, with metal, with plastic and wiring. With mechanics and invention, and just the barest tease of her own tongue. 

Even in this day and age, Alex had been closed minded about sex; the positions she had been in had been set by men before. And she had had preconceived ideas of what sex should be, and wasn’t sure she agreed that the rumours of what lesbians ‘did’ together could ever be ‘real sex’. She had never considered just how good it could be, having a female lover. Not until Maggie. 

And here she was now, gasping her cries of pleasure into the Parisian night. 

~

“I don’t like the French menu.”

“No?”

“No.” Alex frowned at her order, punching her straw through the top of the cup. “Options just aren’t the same.”

Around them, people chattered in a dozen languages, all allied under the same globalist corporate roof. Alex surveyed the design of the French McDonald’s, unsure of the unfamiliar decor. She read off the wall behind Maggie’s head, the French scrawls spinning tales of the efforts the company was making in order to be more environmentally friendly. She translated the stories of trees, tractors and the future of farming within the McDonald’s supply chain. 

This morning, they had gotten room service and despite the endless options of traditional European breakfasts, they had gone for the same bland international food choices that they would have if they were eating at home. It was only fitting that on their last day of vacation they would end up here. 

Alex unboxed her cheeseburger, smiling at the familiar sight. A French McDonald’s, but a McDonald’s nonetheless. 

“Sometimes you can’t beat the American global capitalist agenda.”

“Very touristy,” Maggie quipped, opening a sauce. “Ending up somewhere familiar.”

“Part of me really doesn’t want to go back tomorrow.”

“Workaholic Danvers really not wanting to go back?”

Alex sneered at the tone, reaching over quick as a cobra and stealing a tawny nugget from Maggie’s box.

Scandalised, Maggie asked. “You really stole a nugget?”

“Payback for stealing my heart,” Alex returned, popping it into her mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All feedback is greatly appreciated :)

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you enjoyed reading :)


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